It Was All About the Ta Ta's

The 3 Day walk was an incredible experience in so many ways. We were among over 3200 people walking our legs off this year throughout the Seattle area. Let me try to paint a picture for you about our experience. My camera sucks so I don't have a lot of actual photos to show you. We are dropped off in a mass of people Friday morning about 6:00 where it was evident that this was going to be an entertaining event to say the least. The energy of the the opening ceremony site was invigorating! The music was pounding, the pink was abundant, the stage was set up, volunteers were dancing and directing everyone to the places they needed to be, not to mention all the walkers dressed in their team garb. Teams had pink outfits from head to toe, including team name t-shirts like "Hi-Beam Team", "Walkers for Knockers", "Tough Titties", "The Ta-Ta Sisterhood", "Boob Squad", and "The Breastie Boys" were among some of the ones that made us laugh. Some had pink wigs, pink oversized glasses, pink feather boas, pink bandanas, pink knee highs, pink, pink, pink everything. It was fun to see all the creative costumes. The Opening Ceremonies kicked off and we were all crying before too long as 8 survivors walked into the center circle to take the flags that spoke words like "Optimism", "Hope", "Faith", and lead the 3200 of us out onto the route for the day. The support for the event was amazing! As we trucked along the route people lined up to cheer, cars honked in support, businesses came out to clap, offer bathrooms, or even coffee, people were out in their yards with signs of support. There were 2 ladies that decorated a convertible PT cruiser to look like a giant cow and then they dressed like cows and they drove up and down the route blaring their music, honking, dancing, and cheering for 3 days to encourage the walkers to keep going! There was another lady and her son who died their hair pink and each day we would see her playing her bongos for the walkers. Another lady with a broken leg and her husband set up shop at various points of the route to blare their music and clap while each of us passed by. It was incredible. In addition to all of that, there were 5 or 6 sweeper vans that drove up and down the route looking for those who needed a lift back to camp or to the next pit stop that were all decorated up. There was the princess van, the puppy van, the Fiesta for your Chesta van, the MammoGrammy's, and more. They honked and cheered the whole time. Oh and one more...we had our own Ambulance that drove the route with their music pumping, siren chirping, and arms a waving. So almost as much as our legs were moving our arms were also waving to all of these people as we passed by. Everytime a car would honk we would wave. I'm wondering if when someone honks at any of us in traffic this coming week if we won't all just wave back and smile real big. I'm sure we will quickly realize that the person giving us the finger isn't such a fan of our efforts. Anyway, just about every 2-3 miles we came upon a pit stop or a grab-n-go where there were porta-potties, snacks, water/gatorade, and grass to stretch in. There were also Medic Tents set up, which became increasingly more occupied as the days wore on. I am happy to report that neither Em or I had to visit the medic tent...oh, that's a lie. Em went to see if they had contact solution. Every time she put on sunscreen, her contacts got all foggy. She'd then ask me about the sudden haze in the air and fluffy things in front of us so I'd give her some of my water to wash off her contacts with so she could be among the seeing again.

Day One: I was totally energized and ready to knock out the day...started to get a little sore towards the last 5-6 miles. Feet started to hurt, no blisters, just sort of like your feet were beat up. Really wanted a shower by days end. Took a shower and went to bed at 9:00. Day two: woke up and felt like my legs had been ran over, pulled apart with no directions on how to put them back together, with a huge pain in my right knee pit. I thought, well this is going to be an interesting 22 miles. Oddly enough, Em still had the energy of a 3 year old and fresh legs, one bum hip but legs seemed to be doing fine. She was like speedy gonzalos up the hills. I think she might have been on something...she's a pharmacist you know. By the end of the day, I thought I my legs might fall off. This would have been fine with me since the pain was a little much. One funny story on day 2...so we are on the stretching mats at camp trying to figure out how to stretch out all the pain. Em takes her shoe off to see that her sock is bloody. She says, "Oh, something in my shoe is bleeding." I followed it up by saying, "Goodnews, it's not your shoe!" We were really tired and that was the funniest thing. We laughed really hard. Her toenail had cut her toe, she didn't even need to go to the Medic tent. Day Three: woke up with legs renewed and ready to go. We finished in the top 200 or so into the finish.



Here's us on Day 1 at the Opening Ceremonies awaiting the big kick off.



We walked through many beautiful areas of Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, and Seattle. There were places that I've never been and was so excited to get to see. We only got slightly annoyed with the people that would tell us we were "Almost There" at various points along the route. It seems that people in general have different interpretations of what "Almost There" means...none of which matched my definition. The same goes for the people that said "This is the last hill". They failed to mention that the hill twisted, turned and kept going for about 8 blocks. Hmmm. I only said, "You lie" under my breath after they were out of ear shot.

Coming into the finish was very emotional for me. I think mostly because I was exhausted, but the streets were lined with people cheering, clapping, and shouting "Thank You", "You did it", "Great job". I had spent the last three days listening to the stories of walkers around me. A man was walking for his sister, carrying the "Sister" Flag whose breast cancer had progressed into her bones. The friends of Jill who had poster sized pictures of her as they walked. We walked behind two ladies that had shirts that said, "Goodnight Darling." "Goodnight Mom." with the name of a girl that passed in 2005. (We had to pass them, our eyes kept tearing up and we couldn't see where we were going). I walked with a gal I nicknamed "Swinging Sally" because her arms were a-movin with her every step. She is a survivor. I gained a real understanding of the amount of pain people are in due to the ravages of breast cancer. So walking into the finish knowing we had completed what we set out to do, with all the people cheering you on, and the hope of the impact the money we raised will have on finding a cure it made me a little emotional. Em and I linked arms and walked our final steps through the street and into the holding area, where the celebration continued as we cheered on the next few thousand walkers who limped, skipped, and danced their way in. I teared up quite a bit throughout that process. I got to see my friend, Kimberly come down into the holding area. I was cheering really loud for her, but she couldn't hear me over the rest of the people cheering and the rockin' music. It was truly an incredible experience. What a weekend!